The Design 4 Democracy Coalition (D4D), the Blockchain Trust Accelerator (BTA), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and Emercoin tested a blockchain-powered notarization platform, DemocracyNotary.org for protecting the integrity of the statements of a nonpartisan, citizen-based observation of Macedonia’s September 30, 2018 referendum. The system was designed to “notarize” the public statements on the conduct of the referendum process in order to provide a verified official copy. The platform was used to protect the statement’s authenticity and integrity given the presence of disinformation around the referendum process.

This pilot project utilized a blockchain-based platform to confirm the validity of crucial election observation reports on the referendum process by notarizing statements from a civil society watchdog and providing a public mechanism for authenticating the documents. Through this trial of the Democracy Notary platform, the D4D Coalition, the BTA, and Emercoin gained a better understanding of how blockchain technology can be leveraged to verify civil society reports.

“The manipulation of facts is one of the most significant problems our society faces today. Together with our partners, we've developed a proposed solution based on the Emercoin blockchain to protect the integrity of documents which appear during events like the Macedonian Referendum. The prototype utilizes the benefits that decentralized technologies and the Emercoin blockchain in particular offer: high security, transparency, and trust. The prototype is universal and can be used for events that require the publication of sensitive data, the falsification of which may result in distrust of public institutions. We continue to improve and maintain the product, the main components of which will remain open source," said Kostiantyn Bigus, managing partner of Emercoin.

“The problem of disinformation is likely to get worse before it gets better. It is essential that the tech industry and the democracy community collaborate to explore a wide range of potential solutions to counter the challenge of disinformation,” said Chris Doten, Chief Innovation Officer at NDI.

Emercoin is a cryptocurrency and blockchain service provider. Since 2013 it has developed a wide range of easy-to-use dSDKs. A dSDK (Decentralized Software Development Kit) is a set of software development tools that allows the creation of software, services, and solutions. dSDKs are already implemented in numerous innovative technical solutions built on the blockchain. Emercoin offers services used by many companies and organizations, such as Coca-Cola, Lloyd’s, Bitfury, Microsoft, Risk Cooperative, Beazley, Deloitte, Aspanta, I-Teco, RedHat, Authorizer, Foundico, UnaDesk, and others.

The Design 4 Democracy Coalition is committed to ensuring the protection of democracy and human rights around the globe in the digital age. The Coalition uses innovative technologies to ensure the integrity of information and prevent the spread of false or misleading content. Through convening select civic technology leaders from around the world, the organization explores the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of democracy and technology.

The Blockchain Trust Accelerator (BTA) is the world's leading platform for supporting blockchain technology to solve social impact and governance challenges. BTA provides assistance in establishing relations between organizations, technologists, philanthropists, and government. It also helps to develop projects on the blockchain that benefit society and ensure transparency, increase accountability, and build trust.

The National Democratic Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government.